Smart SMB April 2020

EDITORIAL

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THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY AHEAD PUBLISHED BY Business Media International REGISTERED OFFICE: Office 10, Sharjah Media City www.bmi-digital.com EDITOR IN CHIEF Raman Narayan narayan@bmimea.com Mob: 971-55-7802403 SALES DIRECTOR Ankit Shukla ankit@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-2618885, Mob: 971-55-2572807 EDITOR Diksha Vohra editor@smartsmb.net Mob: 971-50-6395616 ASSISTANT EDITOR Arya Devi arya @bmimea.com Tel: 971-55-8542917 CIRCULATION MANAGER Jinal Chheda jinal@bmimea.com Tel: 971-52-5875607 SALES Mohammad Mubin mohammad@bmimea.com Tel: 971-58-5875607 DESIGN Sunil Kumar design@bmimea.com

Partially and to the extent possible, Businesses and the world needs to get moving, while observing all safety instructions from the authorities in doing so, during the impasse thrust upon the world at large by the pandemic.

For all economies across the world, none excluded, it is going to be a slow pace of recovery once the pandemic begins to slow down in term of new infections. While the world awaits a successful vaccine, the stay at home and social distancing measures are quite vital in keeping the spread under check.

While some tools of video collaboration have been always available for free, the fact is that many other companies have been also sharing their communication and collaboration tools on free basis for the duration of the pandemic. This has helped the world by and large stay connected and carry on with as much work as they could in the interim. The acceleration of digital transformation has been compelled for various sectors including education by the outbreak and some of the changes are here to stay.

Hopefully, most medium and smaller sized Businesses have been able to manage some Business flow although expectedly there will be a big dip in growth. However, it is what it is and every sector must work around these challenges, manage and reduce costs of operations, diversify into opportunistic business leads to find the much needed revenues and cash flow. For instance, if there were some projects that were on the backburner, go back to them and see if they can be revived and can be executed as well against all current limitations.

On a philosophical note, humankind must need to ensure that it is not endangering its fragile existence any further on this planet and must remain wary of any such new threats from any part of the world emanating in future. There are no physical borders to such threats and hopefully, we are now wiser for the future.

R. Narayan Editor in Chief, Smart SMB

Management Chairman S.N. Tiwari

CEO Saumyadeep Halder

Publisher Raman Narayan

Managing Director Ankit Shukla

sn.tiwari@bmimea.com

narayan@bmimea.com

saumyadeep@bmimea.com

ankit@bmimea.com

Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to validate the accuracy of all information included in the magazine, the publishers wouldn’t be liable for any errors therein Copyright@2019 Business Media International LLC. All rights reserved.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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CONTENT

CONTENTS Cover featurE

STRATEGY A CEO PLAN FOR CORONAVIRUS ACTIONS TO TAKE NOW - 26

INSURANCE UNLOCKING THE POWER OF DATA - 12

in FOCUS MIMECAST UNVEILS EMAIL SECURITY 3.0 STRATEGY - 11

TALKPOINT A COMPREHENSIVE FOCUS - 16 EXPERIENCE AT THE EDGE - 18 MANAGING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE - 20

INSURANCE IN CHALLENGING TIMES - 28

hr HOW TO KEEP YOUR TEAM FOCUSED AND PRODUCTIVE DURING UNCERTAIN TIMES - 30

BUSINESS

FEATURE

A STRATEGY FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY – VIRTUAL WORKSPACE STATION - 32

ACHIEVING RESILIENCE WITH TECHNOLOGY - 22 SMARTSMB / April 2020

Cybersecurity 5 THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY TO MAKE ZOOMING SAFER - 34

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NEWS

DUBAI CHAMBER HIGHLIGHTS THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES OF THE UAE FDI LAW Chamber organised introductory workshop on FDI developments in collaboration with Clyde & Co.

UAE’s first tech-based platform set to unify vehicle rentals in the region The tech start-up aims to elevate the traditional way of doing business with high level services, innovation and profound customer care

Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Dubai Chamber) organised a workshop titled ‘Key Aspects of Foreign Direct Investment’, to help the private sector to understand the key aspects of UAE FDI Law. Organised in collaboration with international law firm Clyde & Co, the workshop raised awareness about the FDI Law and focused on other important issues like regulations on foreign ownership in the UAE, corporate structuring for foreign investors, economic substance, and fines for non-compliance.

Conducted by Clyde & Co, Partners Benjamin Smith and Adrian Low, and Associate Katy Thomson, the workshop was attended by representatives from various sectors including lawyers, legal professionals, business owners, executives, experts in contracts and compliance, investors and general managers.

Director of the Dubai Chamber’s Legal Services Department, Jehad Kazim, said the UAE was characterised by its open market, full of investment opportunities. “The UAE offers fertile ground for companies to grow and expand their operations to neighbouring markets,” she said, describing the FDI SMARTSMB / April 2020

Law as a game-changer in terms of providing a safe and stimulating environment for investors.

“The law covers various elements of interest to investors. It allows them to fully own their projects in specific sectors and provides clear information and data to guide their investment choices and decisions,” Kazim explained, noting that the workshop organised by the Chamber aimed to improve the private sector’s awareness of the law, its applications and provisions.

Benjamin Smith, Corporate Partner at Clyde & Co in Dubai said: “We were delighted to collaborate with Dubai Chamber to organise this important workshop that highlighted significant recent legislative developments regarding the FDI Law, and corporate structuring. These topics are of great interest to our clients and to companies operating in the UAE in general.”

Dubai Chamber’s annual programme of activities includes organising training and awareness workshops that target the emirate’s business sector and cover the latest legal and regulatory developments that affect the corporate environment.

Beno Technologies, a youth-led technology company based in the UAE, announced the launch of its newest initiative, Beno, an innovative platform set to revolutionize the vehicle renting sector.

As the transportation market undergoes one of the most radical changes shaped by new technologies and on-demand mobility services, many sectors are being disrupted. Beno recognizes this shift and the underlying emerging opportunities. By embracing the concept of a shared economy, Beno aims to empow-

NEWS

er SMEs across the UAE by unifying their fleets under one streamlined tech-based platform. The community-based vehicle rental marketplace will not only increase traditional sales channels for its partners, but also create a more efficient, data enabled, and technology driven ecosystem with consumers at its heart.

The visionary tech start-up aims to elevate the traditional way of doing business with high level services, innovation and profound customer care.

“Keeping both our partners and customers happy is the reason we do what we do. With that, success follows, said Ahmad Eshtieh, Co-founder, Beno Technologies.

“We are a community driven bunch looking to fill all gaps of our industry with state-of-the-art technology and constant innovation to enhance our customer’s experience”.

Since its inception in 2018, Beno Technologies, a youth-led tech company has taken the market by storm attracting the attention of numerous venture capitalists and investors with their vision, innovation and energy.

The company has successfully raised a seed round and is valued at AED 10 million Dirhams.

According to a study by Euromonitor International, total online car rental sales in the UAE will reach AED 1.85 billion by 2022 and sales are expected to grow at a cumulative rate of 14.8% between 2020 and 2022, assuring the exponential growth in this particular market. Beno’s vision is to act as the bridge for local vehicle rental businesses amplifying their probabilities of being part of this statistic.

“Our launch confirms Beno’s continued dedication to spearheading technological innovation within the technology and overarching business community” said Mohammed Awad, Co-founder, Beno Technologies.

The new Beno app is available for download on Google Play and Apple Store.

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EXTREME NETWORKS DOUBLES ITS INVESTMENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST Extreme’s extensive portfolio of edge, campus, and data center technology is deployed by organizations of all sizes, operating across all sectors Extreme Networks, a cloud-driven networking company, announced the expansion of its operations and investments in the Middle East. Following the recent appointment of Maan Al-Shakarchi as Regional Director for Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META), Extreme has expanded into new regional headquarters in Dubai and is set to grow its sales, channel, and marketing teams in the region.

The company is also placing emphasis on strengthening relationships with its regional distributors and engaging new channel partners. As a channel-centric organization, Extreme is committed to providing both VAR and MSP end-users in the META region with cloud-based, end-to-end networking solutions that meet their needs—and those of their customers. At the core, Extreme’s partnerships are centered around a shared vision of leveraging its joint solutions to enable positive change for its customers and communities.

John Morrison, Vice President, EMEA & APAC Sales, Extreme Networks says, “The META market is among the fastest-growing and most innovative regions in the world. As a global brand, Extreme Networks is excited to further expand its operations and footprint across META at a time where it is more important than ever for businesses to have agile, reliable, and secure network infrastructure in place to fuel their digital transformation efforts. Extreme Networks is the right choice for any

organization in this innovative region that is looking for a trusted partner that supports them on their journey."

This strategy will enable Extreme to build on the momentum it has established across META. The company already has an impressive roster of clients in the region, which are part of over 50,000 customers globally who rely on Extreme Networks’ cloud-driven networking solutions. This includes leading names in banking, hospitality, retail, government, healthcare, and manufacturing.

Maan Al-Shakarchi, Regional Director for Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, Extreme Networks says, "Extreme has an established brand reputation in the region and we regularly feature in analyst reports as a leader in the enterprise wired and wireless LAN markets, as well as an innovator in fabric networking, Wi-Fi access solutions, cloud-management, and IoT security.

We have a strong value proposition for the many innovative enterprises that are looking to enhance customer outcomes and drive business growth by embracing advanced technologies such as Wi-Fi 6, AI, machine learning and IoT. We are therefore deepening our commitment and support for our regional customers and partners by doubling our investment in this market. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in Extreme's role in the META region and I am incredibly excited to play a crucial part in this.”

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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NEWS

D-Link says out of the box thinking need of hour for channel Partners need to seize demand opportunities for effective remote working solutions uninterrupted Internet connections are essential.

D-Link Middle East called out to its partners in the region’s channel community to take advantage of its innovative portfolio of routers, access points and mesh networks to successfully capitalize on market prospects.

“We call out to our regional channel partners to stand strong during this global crisis and to think logically and display patience. Don’t be disheartened by current business circumstances. In the meantime, think outside the box for novel ways of doing business,” said Sakkeer Hussain, Director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East.

Sakkeer Hussain

Director, Sales & Marketing, D-Link, ME

Coronavirus has caused havoc across the world, with hundreds of causalities and bringing normal life to a standstill.

Businesses may be adversely affected, impacting several sectors, including the electronics and commodities market as goods coming in from China and other manufacturing markets could be delayed.

However, it is not all doom and gloom, because in every adversity, there lies an opportunity. The crisis is compelling businesses to invest in remote working solutions assisted by apps and online IT support. This opens up infinite prospects for regional channel partners because for effective remote working solutions, high-speed and SMARTSMB / April 2020

With D-Link Middle East’s extensive portfolio of globally recognized routers and access points, partners have an opportunity to double down on remote working solutions. They can bundle these solutions together with remote work systems to truly provide customers with a comprehensive value-added offering.

“The UAE government is well prepared and has already implemented several precautionary measures at all entry points and public places. If we work together, I am certain that we can emerge out of this crisis, stronger than ever,” Hussain further added. “At D-Link, we have educated all our staff on the importance of ensuring hygiene and are strictly implementing all the necessary actions. We urge channel partners to stay alert and safe and increase awareness among their personnel during this time.”

HP partners with Classera HP Digital Classroom’ combines state-of-the-art hardware and software technology HP Inc. signed a memorandum with Classera, the leader in Learning Management System (LMS) and Student Information System (SIS) to provide e-learning solutions for students in the region. The partnership which took place at the Global Educational Supplies and Solutions (GESS) 2020 aims to create an ecosystem where smart hardware is coupled with cutting-edge software to support new teaching methodologies and empower all the key stakeholders in the classroom.

The aim of the partnership is to technologically support the education sector in the region by introducing ‘HP Digital Classroom’ which combines state-of-the-art hardware and software technology to enhance student and teacher in-class experience. Fur-

NEWS

thermore, ‘HP Digital Classroom’ caters to the growing demand for e-learning solutions that manage and deliver high-quality online classes. These digital classes are designed to enable students excel in their studies to reach their full potential.

Mayank Dhingra, Education Lead for HP Inc. in the MENAT region said, “We are excited about our partnership with Classera as it brings us a step closer to providing world-class innovative solutions such as ‘HP Digital Classroom’ which is easily accessible and highly-effective for students in this region. Our education solutions are articulate and compelling.

This framework gives us a unique differentiation point and sets our product apart from competitors.”

Mohammad Almadani, CEO of Classera Inc, said, “This strategic partnership will create unprecedented opportunity for both governmental and private education institutions to benefit from an end to end solution covering all their requirements in digital transformation space by tapping into the two companies experience serving eLearning. We will continue to work with our partners such as HP to disrupt the education ecosystem and make a greater impact for education institutions to help them deliver on their mission and reach their full potential.”

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Mindware Collaborates with Microsoft for OEM Products The new agreement extends the existing partnership Mindware has with Microsoft for volume and value licensing of Microsoft’s suite of cloud solutions Mindware, a leading Value Added Distributor (VAD’s) in the Middle East and Africa, it has signed a new agreement with Microsoft. Under the partnership, Mindware will market Microsoft’s Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) products, which includes Microsoft Windows 10, Windows Server 2019 and Microsoft Office 2019, across the GCC. Nicholas Argyrides, General Manager - Gulf at Mindware said, “We are delighted to add Microsoft’s world-class suite of OEM products to our portfolio. Microsoft has been the product of choice over the years for both, corporate as well as individual users of desktop PCs and laptops. As such, we see tremendous business potential.”

Mindware currently manages volume and value licensing for the Microsoft suite of cloud solutions. The new agreement extends upon this existing partnership. For the new OEM products, Mindware will look to target small and medium businesses (SMBs) as well as individual consumers through it’s reseller network.

Roy Chalhoub, Device Sales Lead Middle East & Africa at Microsoft said, “Our relationship with Mindware is a long standing one. Their capacity as a solid Devices Distributor will align with our strategy to attach more Genuine Software and grow the PC Market.

We believe that by signing this new distributorship agreement, we will be able to strengthen our reach and fur-

Roy Chalhoub

Device Sales Lead, MEA, Microsoft ther engage with our channel across the region. ” Microsoft and Mindware will work jointly in promoting these OEM products.

These will include roadshows, digital campaigns, traditional advertising and other business-relevant marketing activities. Mindware will provide support to its channel partners by way of credit facilities and ongoing technical support.

“Mindware is one of the largest authorized distributors in the region. We, therefore, have access to an extended channel network that can now be leveraged to re-sell our newly introduced Microsoft OEM product line,” added Chalhoub.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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NEWS

SAP QUALTRICS LAUNCHES TWO NEW FREE SOLUTIONS FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY in the wake of COVID-19 coronavirus, Middle Eastern organizations are being called on by industry experts to adopt real-time solutions to re-design core business processes to secure employees’ and citizens’ welfare and subsequently maintain business continuity.

Safety and well-being are top priorities as the world manages the deepening effects of the coronavirus. All organizations face unprecedented challenges as the impact on the global economy continues. Frontline industries of healthcare, pharmaceuticals, research, and public security need to access real-time information, address citizen sentiment, and accelerate reaction time.

“To weather the impacts of the current COVID-19 coronavirus crisis, SAP enlists in leveraging real-time tech solutions to interweave potentially disrupted supply chains, foster safe travel, accelerate coronavirus pre-screening, and facilitate remote working,” said Sergio Maccotta, Senior Vice President, SAP Middle East South.

“SAP is now more than ever the trusted partner to help the world run better and improve people’s daily lives.”

SAP Qualtrics has launched two new free solutions: the COVID-19 Pre-Screen and Routing, a guided pre-screening questionnaire and information portal, and the Remote Work Pulse, which provides a live

Sergio Maccotta

Senior VP, SAP, Middle East South

barometer for organizations to understand how employees are working from home.

Similarly, and to support the organizations which embrace our citizens, SAP has opened access to SAP Ariba Discovery for real-time procurement between buyers and sellers to maintain the supply chain, and to TripIt Pro from Concur to manage safe and easy travel itineraries in the face of changing travel itineraries.

VAD TECHNOLOGIES AND PRIME COMPUTER ANNOUNCE DISTRIBUTION PARTNERSHIP

the same experience to new Resellers, Clients and Industries within our Distribution Ecosystem.’

VAD Technologies will add Prime Computer’s Mini-PCs and Servers to its product range and will position and distribute the Swiss manufacturer’s innovative hardware solutions in the Middle East.

All products are silent and protected against dirt and dust. This ultra-compact Mini-PCs and powerful servers can be used in areas where conventional hardware fails.

Prime Computer CEO Sacha Ghiglione commented on the new partnership: “Thanks to our Sales Director AMEA (based in Dubai) Nigel Ransom, Prime Computer is already an established brand in the UAE. The partnership with VAD Technologies will further strengthens our position in UAE and expands into the rest of the GCC.

The outstanding quality of the Prime Computer’s products enables a longer product life cycle and significantly reduces expensive downtime. In combination with the extremely low power consumption, low operating costs and CO2 impact is significantly improved.

Mario M. Veljovic, General Manager of VAD Technologies also commented; ‘Prime Computer’s products are innoSMARTSMB / April 2020

Mario M. Veljovic

General Manager, VAD Technologies

vative, reliable and ensure lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Prime Computer Clients in the Region are very satisfied, and we are excited to bring

All products are developed, assembled and individually tested in Switzerland before being shipped to customers. All Prime Computer products come with a standard 5 year warranty.

IN FOCUS

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MIMECAST UNVEILS EMAIL SECURITY 3.0 STRATEGY New Technology capabilities and integrations strengthen Mimecast’s cloud-based platform Mimecast has added new capabilities to its cloud-based platform comprised of integrated service components that organizations’ need to combat the latest cybersecurity challenges. These capabilities further enable customers to embrace a new approach to defending email. Mimecast’s Email Security 3.0 strategy helps organizations address threats at three distinct zones: the email perimeter, inside the organization or network and beyond the perimeter.

Mimecast has incorporated new major platform innovations helping to increase efficacy with technology integrations and product capabilities, including web browser isolation, security awareness training integrations and brand exploitation protection solutions.

“The email threat landscape has changed and requires organizations to evolve from a perimeter-based discipline to a more pervasive one. For instance, tactics, like impersonation attempts, are becoming increasingly more difficult to identify as they’re happening both in email and ‘in the wild’, but organizations still need to cover off on their basic protection needs at the same time. This requires organizations to consider a new strategy when it comes to defending email,” said Peter Bauer, chief executive officer at Mimecast. “As our customers’ needs evolve, Mimecast is committed to continuing to developnew innovations into our platform to help them build a stronger cybersecurity and resilience posture.”

New enhancements to Mimecast’s cloud-based platform include:

Zone 1 – At the Email Perimeter: Now Includes Browser Isolation and Custom Security Block for Added Protection Mimecast Browser Isolation for Email is designed to provide organizations an additional layer of protection from new phishing sites, appearing as recently as the last few hours.

Mimecast Browser Isolation is engineered to mitigate the risk of emails containing links to spoofed sites by preventing a direct connection between the user’s browser on his or her device and the target web page. Users are now further protected from any potentially malicious action like the challenge of credential harvesting or malicious downloads as the browsing session is executed and contained within the Mimecast cloud rather than on the user’s device.

Browser Isolation policies can be enforced for all employees or customized to target higher risk employees as desired.

Peter Bauer

Chief Executive Officer, Mimecast

The service also is built to provide a safe environment for security analysts and messaging administrators to investigate incidents, helping reduce time to respond, contain and remediate threats.

Zone 2 – Inside the Perimeter: Security Awareness Training is Integrated into the Mimecast Platform to Reduce Costs and Complexity Recent research reveals that 98 percent of organizations deploy security awareness training to their employees, yet 71 percent of organizations have been hit by an attack where malicious activity was spread from one user to another.* To help organizations more effectively manage security awareness training, Mimecast Awareness Training is now fully integrated into Mimecast’s cloud-based platform.

This integration is designed to enable customers to more easily administer awareness training into their Mimecast and broader security ecosystem. Customers can now reduce the cost and complexity by having all their Mimecast solutions fully-integrated, making it easy for organizations to deploy, manage and maintain their security awareness training investments from a single administration console.

Zone 3 – Beyond the Email Perimeter: Brand and Domain Protection with Machine Learning Advances Phishing Protection from Known and Unknown Attacks Mimecast Brand Exploit Protect is engineered to deliver an innovative solution covering more than 99 percent of phishing use cases across the web. Using machine learning, it is designed to run targeted scans that identify even unknown attack patterns, blocking compromised assets before they become live attacks at the earliest preparation stages.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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COVER FEATURE

UNLOCKING

THE POWER OF DATA

IT teams across the globe are actively looking for solutions for the challenges in creating a big data platform. As the pace of businesses continues to increase, the power of big data and its analytics continues to grow. —By Arya Devi

SMARTSMB / April 2020

COVER FEATURE

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Data is a strategic asset for Businesses that needs to be secured at all times and which in parts can be used for extracting good insights that will help in mapping future strategies of the Business. With the explosive growth of Big Data, the high velocity and volume of data coming in has become a challenge to manage. This is where Big data analytics comes in.

It goes without saying that Big Data is a technology that should be handled with care in terms of analysis and systematic extraction of relevant data. In the absence of the necessary care, you could end up having to deal with data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with using data processors. Instead of determining and analyzing whether the business could use or access the data, many organizations initially focus too much of their Big Data efforts on gathering the data.

All data produced is not important to the company which is to be analyzed in the initial stage itself.

“When trying to operationalize big data, many companies must first start by answering the simple question of whether the data is even worthwhile to the business. Assuming the data is useful, then additional tools may be needed to refined or transform that data so it is usable. And even more tools may be needed to give business users access to this data. In all, this underlines how important it is to focus on the business needs before collecting data,” says Adam Mayer, Senior Manager Technical Product Marketing for Qlik.

This proves that having data is not what counts. The organization has to have a vision of the kind of outcomes expected from the big data. Data sets grow rapidly, to a certain extent because they are increasingly gathered.

The world’s technological per-capita capacity to store information has roughly doubled every 40 months since the 1980s. “The company has to understand what exactly they are trying to achieve. They should have

Adam Mayer

Senior Manager Technical Product Marketing, Qlik

“When trying to operationalize big data, many companies must first start by answering the simple question of whether the data is even worthwhile to the business." a strategy on what they wish to drive out of their data. The data should be classified which need to be put in the business development plan. It could be financial data, sales data or the services.” says Krishan Kant Srivastava, IT Head Infrastructure Services, Landmark Hospitality.

Data classification is the first priority a business needs to understand in terms of big data. Srivastava further adds “Big data doesn’t mean, we get the data and germ it and receive the desired result out of it. Before we get the final output, in the backend, remodeling, restructuring, cleansing and date range of the data should be done in a professional way.”

The true value of big data comes when they drive actions for the business.

For this, company needs operationalization capabilities that can consistently sift through the large volume of data and find what is relevant. It is the talent of finding a signal within the noise. It helps in delivering actionable information to businesses to drive better outcomes. Big data analytics has helped healthcare improve by providing prescriptive analytics and personalized medicine, clinical risk intervention and predictive analytics, waste and care variability reduction, automated external and internal reporting of patient data, standardized medical terms and patient registries and fragmented point solutions.

Most of the organizations have plenty of data and analytics tools but they fall short when it comes to converting analytics results into action. Since, April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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COVER FEATURE

Illyas Kooliyankal

Chief Information Security Officer (at a prominent Abu Dhabi Bank)

organizations are moving deeper into advanced analytics with big data.

This is because it is now understood that there are leverageable business insights to be discovered in big data.

For optimum usage of the Big Data, companies should hence have a plan before the implementation.

Even with knowledge of the importance of operationalizing big data, there are various issues faced by companies. “Considering the complexities associated and the resources needed, big data operationalization needs extensive experience, and buyin. The technologies involved and the required expertise are difficult to find and at the same time, it may be costly to maintain.

In addition to this, the integration with the organizational data sources, and other proprietary technologies may be a challenging task too. " Overall the initial implementation cost may be comparatively higher although the long term business value and the intangible benefits it brings are known,” says Illyas Kooliyankal, Chief Information Security Officer at a prominent Abu Dhabi Bank.

SMARTSMB / April 2020

Krishan Kant Srivastava

IT Head Infrastructure Services, Landmark Hospitallity

"Overall the initial implementation cost may be comparatively higher although the long term business value and the intangible benefits it brings are known” He further adds that it is important to make sure the design and architecture of the solutions need to be comprehensively thought through to make the solution robust to provide the required business benefits and at the same time secured enough. “Information security aspects are extremely critical for the big data environment, due to consolidation of most of the valuable data that will be centrally stored in the data lake. This will be accessed by different stakeholders for various purposes, from technologists to business end users. Any security failure could be disastrous for the organization, and at the same time, for hackers and bad actors this will be the key place to tar-

get for any kind of compromises. Thorough assessments to make sure all areas of controls, covering technical, procedural and people has to be ensured by the organization to make sure the environment is rightly protected.”

Before deciding the business requirements from Big Data analytics, a testing environment has to be created.

This helps to find and close the gaps.

“A testing environment has to be made where you can run a small query or automation to see whether the results can be driven out of it,” says Srivastava. He further adds that it is important to do all the processes

COVER FEATURE

in a test/development environment and develop the concept in a smaller scale. “The testing environment plays a vital role. It shows the roadblocks, what needs to be aligned, how to give a better output and desired result in terms of cleansing, extracting better data or RPA,” he adds.

Across verticals business applications are used as part of daily workflows and operational processes and there is a need for real time intelligence which is made possible by embedding analytics. Business users turn to analytics to make effective decisions, which can be made even faster, as business happens, by analyzing and visualizing data right in their applications. Mayer elaborates, “Organizations are turning to embedded analytics strategies that can help them to achieve goals like boosting their competitive advantage, increasing BI adoption to more users across the organization and improving customer experience, maybe even creating new ways of doing business,” he added.

Future trends for embedded analytics indicate continuing expansion of analytics being made available outside of the organization in many verticals through the likes of customer portals and integration. As an example, retail stores could start to give more access to shopping data and provide further granular details for customers and partners alike to make better informed decisions. This could help to make great strides in tackling environmental impacts such as improving logistics from source to table, reducing food wastage and minimizing reliance on single use plastics.

In summary, each company or business will have a different scenario for Big Data. For some firms, hundreds of gigabytes of data trigger the need to consider data management options, while others it maybe a few terabytes.

For either of these, operationalization of big data is the best method to manage and make optimum use of data.

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Big Data Analytics sees rapid growth The Global Big Data Analytics Market was valued at US$ 37.34 billion in 2018 and expected to reach US$ 105.08 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 12.3% throughout the forecast period from 2019 to 2027, according to a report from Research and Markets. Increasing volume of data and adoption of big data tools will likely spur revenue growth during the forecast period.

The rapidly increasing volume and complexity of data are due to growing mobile data traffic, cloud-computing traffic and burgeoning development and adoption of technologies including IoT and AI, which is driving the growth of big data analytics market. Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated every day. Data is created by every click, swipe, share, search, and stream, proliferating the demand for big data analytics market globally.

According to the survey, the number of firms investing in big data and AI more than US$ 50 million rose from 27% in 2018 to 33.9% in 2019.

The global spending on big data analytics is more than US$ 180 billion in 2019 globally. Thus bolstering the big data analytics market growth.

By 2020, 90% of business professionals and enterprise analytics say data and analytics are key to their organization’s digital transformation initiatives. According to a recent research study, approximately, 58% of organizations worldwide plan to adopt big data technology in 2018. The organizations will adopt hybrid IT infrastructure management capabilities. The growing adoption of big data and AI in industries including IT & Telecom, BFSI, and Healthcare among others is further fueling the demand for the big data analytics market.

Key Market Movements • Globally, the big data analytics market is growing at a CAGR of 12.3% for the period from 2019 to 2027.

• Large enterprises segment dominates the big data analytics market with a share of more than 60%. Owing to the increasing adoption and inclination to invest in big data technology among others.

• In addition, the SME segment expected to grow at a remarkable pace during the forecast period. This can be associated with the increasing trend of digitalization and the adoption of big data technology among others.

• North America region leads the big data analytics market and accounts for a share of more than 35% of the total revenue. The region will sustain its lead during the forecast years. This is due to the region being one of the early adopter of technological advancements.

• Asia-Pacific region anticipated registering highest growth.

Asia-Pacific region expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 15% throughout the forecast period. Owing to the increasing adoption of advanced technology in countries such as China, Japan, and India among others.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

16

TALKPOINT

Raj Sabhlok

President of ManageEngine

A COMPREHENSIVE FOCUS ManageEngine, the IT management division of Zoho Corporation hosted its ninth Middle East User Conference in Dubai earlier this year where it also unveiled its new product for Privileged Session Management. Raj Sabhlok, president of ManageEngine discusses the focus areas of the company

— By R. Narayan

How have the annual customer conferences been received?

They have been quite useful for our customers. IT demands a need for continued learning as new technologies evolve. The event is great for customers for come back and learn about what’s new and the new tools that they could implement. A lot of customers come here to get re-certified,get the badge of expertise and honor as part of your whole set of certifications.

Are there overlaps in terms of product lines and market focus between ManageEngine and Zoho?

The focus is well defined and well-inSMARTSMB / April 2020

tegrated for both Zoho and ManageEngine. At Zoho, we look at Businesses in terms of departments and one of them is IT. IT tools from Zoho have been typically developed by Manage Engine for Zoho. ServiceDesk Plus, which is our IT service management solution is marketed by Zoho in the IT category. There is no overlap in the sense of product development, so it is not that what Zoho is developing, ManageEngine is also developing. Rather, there is a lot of cross marketing. Conversely, we also take the analytics tools from Zoho and we market them under ManageEngine for our audience. Zoho has a low-code no-code tool on the IT side and we market that as well.

There are more synergies than overlaps between Zoho and ManageEngine.

How different are markets of focus?

Both divisions target horizontal markets.

In the adoption curve, Zoho’s sweet spots are in the small and medium size Business segment whereas ManageEngine has certainly catered to the SME segment along the way but finds now the larger companies globally using ManageEngine tools pretty regularly. We probably have the broadest suite of IT management tools today. I strongly believe that we have comfortably surpassed our traditional competitors along the way.

What would be the size of Business for the company globally?

While I cannot give an exact figure,

TALKPOINT

the revenues should be several hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues globally. We have close 200,000 customers. Most of the Fortune 500 customers use ManageEngine. We have over 3000 employees worldwide. That perhaps gives an idea of the scale of our size of Business.

Elaborate on the difference in solutions focus?

At Zoho, solutions are offered from a Business application side, addressing every functional areas of the Business, every key Business process- finance, HR, IT etc. Our strategy at ManageEngine has been similar; with respect to computing solutions stack in ManageEngine, we offer solutions around the network, server, applications and security. We want to be comprehensive in the tools we provide for our customers in the targeted markets.

Discuss the enhancement in your Access Manager Plus?

Access Manager Plus is a solution that builds upon our focus on security over the past several years. When we talk of security from an IT department’s perspective, they have under the purview very important IT assets like databases, applications or hardware infrastructure etc, which are typically password protected. We introduced Password Manager Pro several years ago. This is an industrial strength, enterprise IT grade privileged password management solution for IT organizations, where the user goes through an authentication server called password manager providing additional level of security to the applications and offering best practices in terms of password protection of these assets.

In the distributed organizations, you have hundreds if not thousands of password protected assets. Normally, if you have traversed in getting to these assets, you often did have to jump to remotely login to a server to get to another and so on (called jumpboxing. We have simplified this with the Access Manager by providing

authentication for you, handling the jumpboxing for you so that you can get straight to the asset you are interested in and at the same time keeping an incredibly high level of security. It gives you remote login capabilities across multiple hops, all in a very secure manner. It is all a part of what we call PAM 360 (Privileged access management) offering, which include Password Manager Pro and there is also a key management part for SSL certificate sand so on. So we have different components as part of PAM 360, all related to password management of assets for IT organizations.

How has AI been incorporated in your solutions?

There is a lot happening in terms of integrating AI. AI is coming into our operations tools, monitoring and performance management tools already have AI where we are able to do root cause analysis, predictive analysis and so on.

We have introduced a conversational AI assistant that you can communicate with using voice commands. We have borrowed that technology from Zoho called Zia. We can ask Zia to show us reports, tell us which servers are vulnerable as they are not updated on patches, which are the areas where AI is coming into play. We also leverage chatbots which are AI based, where users can ask questions, both technicians and end users and the chatbot responds with answers or take actions.

We are pretty well down the path in incorporating AI across all applicable products.

How do you see the role of ManageEngine in enabling digital transformation?

Our products are about customer experience, employee experience and so you can think of ManageEngine as a provider of a digital transformation framework.

There has been a lot made out of digital transformation. In many cases, Businesses have failed in these initiatives. A lot of it has

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to do with organizations are not aligned with what they want to get out of the digital transformation initiatives. Instead of the Big Bang approaches, there is a need to get back to basics like enhancing some of the way technologies are used within the organizations and allow IT to lead some of these digital transformation initiatives.

They should focus on why they are doing it- hopefully to make the Business more efficient and also keeping constituents in mindemployees, customers etc in the centre of focus. Digital transformation initiatives by and large has missed all of that. Not being aligned with all the goals of the company etc has been a key reason of failures and there is the need to ensure that the focus of these initiatives is on customers and employees.

From a customer perspective, focus on customer experience and for employees, look at automating routine tasks, projects that can help them become more productive etc. In development of solutions, there are a number of technologies for developers from the lowcode, no code platforms that help turn out applications faster.

How has the Business in the region been?

For the region, we have seen a growth around 30%. With our size, to grow at this rate is pretty significant. Looking at how we are growing relative to the industry we are in, it becomes more obvious. The IT management industry grows at 8% and by that measure, we are growing almost four times the rate at which the market is growing.

Are there any plans to open a datacenter in the region?

We have plans for a datacenter in the region by end of the year. As of now, we have datacenters in India, US, Europe, China and Australia.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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TALKPOINT

EXPERIENCE AT THE EDGE Sherifa Hady, Channel Sales Director, EMEA, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company discusses the company’s focus in enabling the experience at the edge What is the role that Aruba plays in digital transformation initiatives that are underway at most companies?

Enterprise and SMB segment companies have indeed gone through some kind of digital transformation in terms of how IT can help their business outcomes, and not just be a cost centre.

Our strategy revolves around 4 aspects- connect, protect, analyze and act. Connectivity in terms of hardware is at the root of what we do in terms of our networking solutions. With more and more devices connected outside of the datacenter, there is a need for better security, which is the second aspect of our focus. Hence, we are going to see more and more security being embedded into products. In future, every product will have security embedded. With more and more devices connected, we need to enable for customers a preemptive way in which they can look at connectivity bottlenecks and improve from the perspective of future risks, look at security issues to resolve them etc. The next is to act on the analysis so that the business doesn’t have to bear the impact of these issues. We have software management tools to analyze aspects like high bandwidth, low bandwidth zones or users etc so that IT managers can look how to rearrange.

How are you focused on enabling partners? What are their pain points and how shoukd they be evolving?

Customers first and customers last is the basis of our got to market strategy.

Customer requirements these days are very different from earlier years when the reseller could just sell them the products and enjoy the margins. We are going to see less and less of that model and more and more of the services model in this decade.

SMARTSMB / April 2020

— By Diksha Vohra

Sherifa Hady

Channel Sales Director, EMEA, Aruba

There will be requirements for partners to provide a whole new set of services to customers. The requirements could be more around consumption models of using IT. Some of the customers may come up with the requirements that they do not want to incur costs on product purchases and training costs and they would rather want the partners to come in and give these as services. So rather than look at outright costs, they will want hardware as

a service, software as a service, networking as a service etc.

Our partners are obviously going through a transformation themselves. We are enabling them through trainings and resources. We do see a lot of companies that are heading in that direction.

We see a lot of partners providing those services. Other entities, for instance the Telcos that weren’t neces-

TALKPOINT

sarily into reselling IT earlier are now among the largest managed service providers. Distributors are also rethinking their roles in the future.

What is Aruba Airpass about briefly?

Aruba Air Pass is a new service to automatically and securely authenticate guests with public cellular network credentials on private enterprise Wi-Fi networks. It is built on the technical foundations of Passpoint and Wi-Fi Calling and creates a roaming network across the Aruba enterprise customer footprint, extending cellular coverage and enhancing the visitor and subscriber experience. With Aruba Air Pass, subscribers of any participating mobile network will enjoy seamless and secure guest access to Wi-Fi networks in all participating enterprise venues Thus is about providing a seamless connectivity experience to our customers.

Do you think 5G and WiFi6 could possible witness fast traction in terms of market growth?

It is not too early at all for 5G and WiFi6. We have had a lot of discussion around the benefits of both. 5G and WiFi6 together will be a powerful combination, providing higher bandwidth, better connectivity and all our products being launched from now and in future will be enabled with these. This will result in seamless connectivity, enabling faster downloads, faster uploads and so on at the edge where in future you are going to see more and more devices connected, outside the data center.

Is there a traction currently for edge networking deployments in the Middle East?

There is so much potential and partners are quite excited looking at what solutions we offer. Taking the example of what we call the Experience economy, we are focused on how we can enable our SMB and mid-market customers get more out of their customers in turn. There is so much more Banks can do or retailers can do out of the experience economy and there is so much

uptake and interest from our partners and customers. Aruba’s Experience Edge platform intuitively assimilates existing cloud, mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) data into a simple, single system to transform customer experiences.

Which verticals are key focus for you?

The Digital workplace is a key focus and we have the solutions for enabling it. Hospitality is a key vertical as is Healthcare in terms of requirements for device management, asset management, location services etc. Education is a huge opportunity in terms of enabling access for students, access for campus, branch etc. Industries like Oil & Gas or manufacturing where IT is becoming a norm than a rarity are key verticals. Also retail and venues like stadiums are also areas of

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him or her some discount offers. At the end of the day, the services are meant for increasing revenues for retailers.

At the same time, there are also more opportunities such as for smart city initiatives, in education like helping a student in a wide university campus locate a classroom etc.

What are your expectations from your partners?

We work closely with the channel and 90% of our business across MEA is through the channel.

Expectations from partners two years ago was different from what we expect from our partners in future, two years on.

Two years ago, it was about their competencies to some extent, certifications etc. Going ahead, we need to move into looking more at what services they can

"5G and WiFi6 together will be a powerful combination, providing higher bandwidth, better connectivity and all our products being launched from now and in future will be enabled with these" opportunities for us, depending on the market.

In the Middle East, we are doing best in hospitality, compared to other market in EMEA. In healthcare as well, we have some good case studies.

Please elaborate on how Location based services is growing?

Location based services helps in retail specifically and in other segments as well. Retailers can take information from the customer and feed some information if they use location based services. In malls for instance, they can monitor the target shopper's surroundings and know what kind of shops he or she is looking at, sending

offer. Certifications will continue to be key and also what the partner can provide in terms of a service to a customer.

Of course the benefits like rebates will follow. We are at a turning point in terms of our partner programs.

How are partners managing their business in current situation?

We are having daily calls with partners to understand what they need to help their Business, if they need any. Health of our employees is top priority and the company is doing a lot around ensuring that during this pandemic our employees are safe but at the same time, there are opportunities in the market at the end of the day and we are trying to ensure Business continuity.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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TALKPOINT

MANAGING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Abdallah Saqqa, Head of Customer Experience, SAP Middle East North speaks about the primacy of enhancing customer experience business visibility, focus, and agility – and focus on transforming citizen, customer, and employee experiences.

What are the critical touchpoints for CX typically in organizations? What are the backend components of CX? In the GCC, the YouGov survey shows that there are four main customer experience touchpoints – with 52% using Direct Comms, 51% using Social Media, 46% using Surveys, 44% using Ratings/Reviews, and 4% using Other.

Abdallah Saqqa

Customer Experience Head, SAP, MEN

How is the outlook for CX software in the era of digital transformation as a priority investment?

Customer experience is a top GCC business priority in 2020, agreed upon by 96 percent of the region’s IT decision-makers, according to a recent YouGov survey.

As the UAE embraces the Experience Economy, organizations can no longer deliver only products and solutions – they need to deliver enhanced experiences. By combining the customer “x-data” with operational “o-data,” organizations can better listen, understand, and act on customer beliefs, emotions, and intentions.

As a result, organizations can become Intelligent Enterprises with greater SMARTSMB / April 2020

Organizations that want to become customer experience leaders need to start listening and collect experience data from customers at every meaningful touchpoint. They need to enhance their understanding by Analyzing operational and experience data to accurately identify trends and issues.

They must need to act by closing experience gaps, taking the right action at the right moment to create engaging experiences How is AI/ML revolutionizing the customer service space to offer real time experience?

Conversational AI and the use of text and voice-based messaging apps to automate communications between businesses and their customers. As consumers continue to make greater use of these channels, GCC organizations can seize the opportunity to integrate conversational AI technologies.

• Smart chatbots. Powered by AI, smart chatbots are designed to automatically mimic a human response.

These chatbots can message back and forth with customers throughout their commerce journey while also gathering data and generating a more personalized experience.

• Voice technology. Many end-users are already using voice technology in their homes, such as smart speakers.

Using smart speakers, consumers are increasingly making online purchases.

This is especially for consumers who prefer the convenience of shopping from home, who live far from retail shopping centers, or who have physical disabilities.

Are SaaS model CX deployments seeing rising traction?

Yes, we are seeing strong GCC demand for CX deployments on an SaaS model in order to free up organizations’ IT budgets by shifting their business models to an opex-based cloud model. Our C4C (Sales Cloud and Service Cloud) and Marketing Cloud solutions are fully hosted on our cloud data centers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We have many customer go-lives on these solutions in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

In line with our current strategy, we are planning to launch Commerce Cloud in the UAE later in 2020.

Briefly explain your CX platform.

The SAP C/4HANA customer experience suite brings together customer data, experiential and operational data, and the power of intelligent technologies across sales, marketing, commerce, and service to deliver engaging and trusted experiences in the moments that matter most to your customers.

With our recent acquisition of Qualtrics and the introduction of Experience Management solutions from SAP, businesses can now embed the opinion and voice of the customer (X-data) throughout the entire business process (O-data) to infuse empathy into the customer’s journey and engage on a deeper level.

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FEATURE

ACHIEVING RESILIENCE WITH TECHNOLOGY Digital Technologies are boosting capabilities of organizations across verticals, from education to retail, to continue their operations on a remote basis during the pandemic phase

— By R. Narayan

T

he world definitely entered a new era in the face of the pandemic that continues to throw challenges of the sort that humankind has never faced before. As a demonstration of its resilience and in face of stringent stay at home and social distancing measures to keep the pandemic in check, mankind has turned to Technologies to keep the world in motion.

While economies worldwide take a battering and growth forecasts have a mighty tumble, video conferencing technologies in particular integrated with several others have offered a great way for people to stay connected with their workplace and activities.

Healthcare and law & order sectors are in the frontlines of the efforts of enabling a successful recovery towards normalcy at the earliest. For many other sectors, their workplace has become virtual with access to their physical work locations

SMARTSMB / April 2020

FEATURE

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unavailable or restricted until the pandemic passes.

Sunil Nair, IT Lead at Al Falah University says, “COVID-19 Shutdown has tested the sustainability of many companies.

Transforming business digitally is a must to ensure business moves on. Gone are those days, when people had only work from the office options. The COVID-19 situation has opened the doors to work from home. Many online IT solution companies and IT Departments of companies are the major winners in this case. Being in the Information Technology profile, I consider myself fortunate to be working for a digitally enabled University in UAE.” Reconciling to these new realities, various sectors have resorted to using more of video communication technologies to ensuring their workers stay connected and a semblance of workflow is being managed. The huge demand for video conferencing has resulted in a deluge of downloads of the various leading tools available, with Zoom in particular seeing a rapid growth in number of users until some security concerns were brought up. Several other vendors have raced to enhance their offerings and giving users free use access to their tools for the present.

Sunil says, “The Education sector benefits a lot from many cost-effective technologies and licenses from many tech giants like Google and Microsoft. Not just this, but many other IT companies during the COVID-19 shutdown have also extended their licenses for 3-4 months for free to help address work from home situations. Working for Al Falah University, IT Center has been extremely busy finding the best solution and has successfully deployed many new technologies that help our students and faculties continue education in the e-class model and avoid disruption in curriculum.”

Education in particular, faced with the situation of a massive disruption because of the impossible scenario of opening schools during the tricky uncertain phase, has accelerated towards going digital. Most, if not all, educational institutions in the region have already embraced some form of digital resources prior to the current phase and they have raced to enable video-based learning for students by integrating with their existing infrastructure.

Shabeer Mohammed, Vice President - Technology Services at the GEMS Education agrees that entities that had already taken some strong initiatives towards making as many business processes digitally enabled are better placed to work in the midst of the disruption we face because of covid19.

The Group had a strategy already in place to address digital delivery of education.

He says, “At GEMS, 2 years back the Chief Disruption Office was setup and the main objective was to digitize and disrupt the Education delivery to our students.”

Sunil Nair

IT Lead, Al Falah University

A combination of technologies are helping cope with the challenges of not being able to conduct the digital delivery model of imparting education.

Sunil says, “From an education perspective, technologies like Microsoft Teams, played an important role in conducting online classes. Technologies like Google drive, Microsoft One Drive, Dropbox for File sharing and VPN made the work of our Administrative and Academic staff work more efficiently. At Al Falah University, IT Department have also deployed AI based online proctoring applications to prevent cheating during online exams, where a student is seated at his/ her home and invigilator/faculty can monitor the student sitting at their home. Yet, at the end of the day, we try to remember that education begins with one teacher and a student – and a desire to make the world a little smarter.”

For GEMS Education, it has been about focusing on achieving three large objectives.

Shabeer says, “We ensured cloudification of Applications to allow easy access for all users and anywhere. We have ensured all access is available from mobile phones and tablets, so staff and parents are finding information and education material accessible at the click of a button.

We have also ensured that in no way student/parent/ teacher data can be compromised or breached so ensuring data classification and data leakage protection April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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FEATURE

extremely busy assisting users and enabling new technologies. The IT Department has managed to make the education reachable to all our students online during this COVID-19 Lockdown. We have ensured that we deliver solutions, that are the best in the industry and cybersecurity front.”

The massive shift has not been without challenges and though the transition has taken the majority of users by surprise, they are adapting successfully.

Shabeer says, “It's a change and initial days are tough during the un-announced transition. So initially it was difficult for staff and students but swiftly they adopted the usage which they were already trained on. They don’t feel the difference and are able to get more time educating the students with very little disturbance.”

Shabeer Mohammed

VP, Technology Services, GEMS Education

mechanisms are in place while the data is available via Cloud or Mobile.”

Education lost almost no time in moving to the e-class model and avoiding any significant disruption in curriculum.

Shabeer says, “The emphasis in Business Continuity and the plans on how we could move Online Learning was planned in advance. Students, teachers and other staff were well trained on the use of tools that would be used for such eventualities. Documents or Articles on the usage of the tools was shared again. Videos showing the demo also helped.”

This also meant that the tech teams had to support this rapid transition to the digital.

Shabeer adds, “Our Technology team had to stretch to ensure everyone was aware of the access and usage.

Hotlines and call centres were put up immediately to help Parents and Teachers in helping and guiding them transition to E-learning.”

The technology support teams have been kept on their toes in ensuring disruption is minimal, if at all. For the education sector indeed, it has meant some hand holding to help users negotiate the way around to get familiarized with how all of it works.

Sunil says, “The IT Department at Al Falah University is SMARTSMB / April 2020

Once the pandemic is under greater control and we limp back to greater normalcy in terms of routines, there is a fat chance that some of the advances we have been forced into in terms of using more technology will stay on. Business travel is going to be lesser possibly than before and work from home measures may seem as a possible option for several jobs, based on specific company policies.

According to Shabeer, “once normalcy is restored, the world will be a new place with companies facing multiple challenges to come back to status quo. All the initiatives introduced during this period will help drive efficiencies and speed up digitization drive at a even more faster pace.”

It must also be mentioned that, irrespective of vertical, the digital readiness of organizations has determined their speed to getting their digital delivery models in place to resume education or business.

As Partha Banerjee, Group IT Manager at Safeer Group of companies says, “Planning for the future always pays its dividends and this is one of those times when foresight has paid well.”

At the same instance, the user friendliness of the present generation of video collaborations tools, has also meant that connectivity, communication as well as collaboration are easily addressed to achieve outcomes effectively.

For retail and similar sectors, the challenges have been a little different as work from home options are not entirely possible and they need to at least have some skeletal operations on premise. However, they too have geared up to enhance both the backend and frontend of their IT infrastructure.

Partha says, “ Broadly speaking, primarily, we have en hanced the bandwidth, tools for remote connectivity and

FEATURE

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the security at the gateways. Our business model does not support WFH. Hence it could not be incorporated across the board. But for specific employees who could be and had to be allowed for WFH, we deployed Accops Hysecure Connectivity Solution.

As customers stay at home, a lot more of business is happening in e-commerce vis-a-vis the physical store shopping and this has enforced companies to accelerate their e-tailing initiatives.

Partha elaborates, “With the time bound regulations on movement the footfalls have fallen in all the stores and markets. People have no other option but to go for online shopping. In view of the restricted timings of the showrooms, we have revamped our online ordering process for the Novelty division and would be launching a fullfledged e-commerce site for our FMCG division.”

He elaborates further, “We are in the process of deploying an online store for the FMCG Department. It should be operational very soon. Besides enabling the e-tailing operations, we have also automated the processing of business transaction documents. The IT team has been involved right from the stage of designing the model of e-commerce suitable to our operations, evaluation and selection of the vendor and in the implementation of the solution. IT has played its role in setting the standard of operations for both the end users as well as the suppliers to ensure that the compliance standards are met. IT has also reworked on the SCM process and ensured that it is technically and operationally in sync with the e-commerce model. Finally, IT has incorporated digital signing for all applicable documents.”

Enabling technologies for operations is not completed without ensuring they are secured. Therefore, cybersecurity has been a key aspect as well at Safeer.

Partha adds, “To address cybersecurity requirements, we have deployed multiple layers of security. With the enhancement of the e-commerce activities, the IT team has reviewed and modified the policies and brought in some relevant changes particularly for the Finance Department.”

Partha Banerjee

Group IT Manager Safeer Group of Companies

new systems to make their education continue from home.

Online virtual classroom and exam solutions have proved that you don’t have to visit schools and colleges personally.”

The key has been the ability to communicate on a one-tomany basis successfully through video collaboration technologies in real time, a viable alternative to conventional gatherings, in a classroom or large meetings.

“While the future cannot be predicted, in any business, the key to success is Communication. It is now clear that you don’t have to be at the office to make a call to customer.

Telephones are soon going to be obsolete. Online meetings and webinars are the future. Companies who don’t adopt changes will have tough times going forward.

The successful continuum achieved with leveraging a digital model for delivery for education means to some extent for sure and on case by case basis, education has changed forever.

Partha says, “This phase is all set to bring in a paradigm shift in the future of business models. E-meetings, WFH and tailored made office space would be the future considerations. Companies would reconsider the options of reducing OPEX and fixed overheads. The ISPs would have the opportunity to gain from the requirement of enhanced bandwidth and Data Security would define the continuity and success of a business more than ever.”

Sunil comments, “The feedback is wonderful to the virtual classroom teaching. The staff and students had never experienced first-hand these technologies previously. People who stayed away from technologies are now ready to learn

Indeed, when the world is safer with possibly an effective vaccine available, it will still be a new normal for all of us.

We have entered a new era where digital transformation is a way of life.

A change for now, and forever?

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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COLUMN/STRATEGY

A CEO PLAN FOR CORONAVIRUS:

ACTIONS TO TAKE NOW A

s the novel coronavirus outbreak has upended businesses around the world at alarming speed, one thing has become clear to executives grappling with the crisis: doing nothing is not an option. COVID-19 is unlike any previous crisis and taking traditional crisis-response approaches will not be enough. With our operations running smoothly and business running effectively amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we share the steps that CEOs need to take today to mitigate the effects of the outbreak.

CEOs need to plan for multiple quarters of lower revenue as the recovery may not be a quick bounce-back writes Tom De Waele, Managing Partner, ME, Bain & Company

The situation

All stakeholders including employees and customers are probably experiencing fear or panic. Hence, you need to appoint a senior, fully dedicated COVID-19 war room team focused on this all day, every day. As CEO, you must be out in front with a planned cascade of possible actions, probably more aggressive than your team can imagine right now. Customers will change some behaviours permanently, accelerating prior trends. Taking bold action now can set you up for success through the downturn and beyond.

The process of containment and slowing the spread of COVID-19 in each country will create major disruption, irrespective of the seriousness of the virus spread. This should not cause additional fear in a situation that is already frightening for everyone, rather, it is a simple reminder that during times of crisis, such as the financial crisis of 2008, the strong will get stronger and strength here will be define by clear SMARTSMB / April 2020

leadership, plans and actions. The high likelihood of a substantial revenue disruption will lead to a potential liquidity crisis for many businesses. This could mean that the recovery may not be a quick bounce-back. Accordingly, CEOs need to plan for multiple quarters of lower revenue.

Six urgent priorities Protect your employees and customers

Implement the best-known guidelines available for both employees and customers. This includes monitoring global health guidelines and other companies—and continue to fine tune. Don’t be afraid to overcommunicate with full transparency and assist epidemic-limiting initiatives in any way possible.

Stress test P&L and liquidity Outline macro scenarios by market, translate into revenue-decline and P&L scenarios. You should also build extreme downside scenarios as this has the potential to be a 100-year event.

Therefore, an outline of the major oper-

COLUMN/STRATEGY

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ational actions should be in place.

Defend against revenue declines You need to take a customer-centric view and ask yourself questions like how you will build trust, loyalty and market share through and beyond this crisis. Similarly, you should build specific revenue-mitigation actions for declines in core revenue streams.

Stabilize operations for the new normal Stabilize supply chains of physical goods from likely geographic and labor disruptions while building contingency operational plans for all aspects of the business

Tom De Waele

Plan urgent cost cuts to conserve cash You can control the sending hand brakes by initiating immediate actions (e.g. hiring freeze, opex, capex, working capital). Similarly, set aggressive break-the-glass cost actions triggered by more extreme revenue scenarios.

Outline a medium-term plan to lean out the cost structure for the future.

It should be a plan that is more automated, more variable and, more shock resistant

Play offense, not just defense Define how you’ll outperform competitors and expand share through and beyond the crisis. This also means that you should prepare for bounce-back and recovery. At the same time, plan for and take advantage of a leapfrog change in customer behavior —especially digital.

Actions to take now There are several moves that CEOs can take right now to help ease the impacts of the epidemic and come through stronger on the other side. As the economic fallout continues, business leaders will want to first model their exposure to the coronavirus fallout and

Managing Partner, ME Bain & Company

street test their P&L and liquidity. There will be critical “triggers” where more aggressive actions will be needed. We recommend immediately launching three actions simultaneously:

Align your senior team with a wake-up call

• Get the full team aligned with the true severity of the macro COVID-19 situation and worstcase financial scenarios • Set safety as the number one priority • Set cash conservation and liquidity as a secondary priority • Avoid inaction; “wait and see” approach could damage the company

Establish a dedicated senior team in a war-room setting

• Set up a senior, dedicated team from multiple disciplines (ops, sales, HR, finance) • Prioritize and put major work streams into action; set a tone of daily progress using an Agile Methodology • Break the usual reporting and update cycles; Urgency of the situ-

ation requires a different model, such as daily informal CEO updates • Put a tracking tool in place

Outline macro scenarios and translate to contingency plans

• Outline specific macro COVID-19 scenarios by major geographies • Translate those scenarios into tangible revenue-decline and operational-disruption scenarios • Begin to outline no-regret moves.

There will be an impact so start acting wisely • This needs to be done in days, not weeks (and you can continue to iterate)

It is obvious that the COVID-19 outbreak is unlike any previous crisis.

Hence, CEOs need a unique, tailored and immediate crisis-response. A waitand-see approach has no chance of being effective. CEOs should be aware of the situation and up to speed with the latest updates. They should also understand that there are six main priorities to focus on during this calamity and accordingly implement a carefully mapped out action plan.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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COLUMN/INSURANCE

INSURANCE IN CHALLENGING TIMES Simon Fisher, Executive Vice President - Gulf, ACE Group discusses the probable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on private healthcare insurance and government funded public sectors

A

s the world holds its collective breath over the full human and geographical impact of COVID-19, which is developing on an hourly basis and which remains unclear amidst the uncertainty of exponential transmission rates, one common consideration is to what extent private insurance policies respond to the cost of treatment in countries that adopt a predominantly private healthcare model.

Technically, and as a general rule, now that the virus has been classified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a ‘pandemic’, healthcare policies will no longer respond to the treatment of a policyholder who has been diagnosed with COVID-19, due to policy exclusions which recognise this change. Notably in UAE, health authorities stipulate minimum coverage requirements in order for policies to be deemed regulation compliant. One service listed ‘outside of the scope of health insurance’ by the Dubai Health Authority is treatment for “all healthcare services for internationally and/ or locally recognized epidemics.”

This exclusion is designed, of course, to ensure that health insurance providers will not face crippling and unsustainable losses in the face of a pandemic. The question then becomes whether the state will pick up the cost of care. Depending on the number of diagnosed members and the rate of growth in any one country, insurers may still cover the associated costs as a gesture of goodwill. However, if the situation continues to deteriorate then we can expect insurers to

SMARTSMB / April 2020

Simon Fisher

Executive Vice President - Gulf, ACE Group

COLUMN/INSURANCE

enforce this exclusion to protect their balance sheets.

Many states may have already taken immediate action and decided to pay for the cost of treatment, prevention and quarantine as a first action response in an effort to prevent the spread and therefore patients relying on private insurance policies will receive the necessary care regardless of who is covering the cost.

Currently, approaches differ country to country. In Bahrain for example, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 claims are being handled at a state level, either at quarantine sites or at the main government hospitals. Insurance companies are not involved once patients are diagnosed and the state bears the cost. Similarly, in the UAE, the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) has implemented instructions about when to seek medical attention from one of the main public hospitals or designated primary care centres.

In the US meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the country’s leading national public health institute has been covering the cost for COVID-19, while certain states including New York, Washington and Nevada have ordered health insurance companies to waive co-pays and deductibles for coronavirus testing.

Japan is now covering coronavirus screening through the country’s national health insurance programme, which is administered by local governments.

As being witnessed around the world, the impact of the coronavirus outbreak at a national level is affecting major economic contributors, with global tourism, aviation and hospitality among the industries facing enormously challenging times amid unprecedented closures and lockdowns.

As the situation develops, we can expect to see supply chains disrupted, with significantly reduced capacities in certain areas of manufacturing and trading.

Business interruption insurance could help cover lost income during the

event of a shutdown period, however very close attention should be paid to the wordings to determine whether the policy would respond where there is no physical damage and the root cause of business losses are caused by the impact of the disease.

Governments can seek to protect themselves by arranging bespoke insurance and financing structures, which are designed to provide immediate cash flow to pay for logistical support and assist with combatting the impact an event such as COVID-19 might have on the country. Policies can respond by making lump sum payments in the event of parametric or measurable triggers being met, regardless of the actual level of devastation.

Parametric insurance relies on a mea-

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public health, natural disasters and hazards, or man-made risks, which can provide immediate financial support in the event of any future catastrophic events.

Governments in this region have been proactive in their approach to guard against potential financial losses.

Abu Dhabi has announced a stimulus package to preserve the emirate’s economic gains and support the private sector, while easing the cost of living for residents. Similarly, the Government of Dubai announced an economic stimulus plan to reduce the cost of living and protect businesses, primarily in tourism, retail, trade and logistics.

While the situation is a concern for multiple industries, including insurance and reinsurance, large-scale

"Depending on the number of diagnosed members and the rate of growth in any one country, insurers may still cover the associated costs as a gesture of goodwill" surement of a natural phenomenon or index. In the case of coronavirus, the cover could be structured to respond once the virus reaches a certain preagreed level of contagion, as defined by the number of cases, speed of spread, geography and other factors.

Unfortunately, with the situation having developed globally and so quickly, it is unquestionably too late for countries seeking to buy parametric insurance to protect against the COVID-19 pandemic, as it is highly unlikely that any reinsurer would agree to cover this exposure now that the risks and exponential transmission rates are known – even for countries that have not yet seen any cases. However, similar products may still be attainable in relation to other threats, whether

pandemics are not new to humanity. We have dealt with crises from the Plague of Athens in 430BC, to the Black Death in the 14th century and Spanish Flu in the early 1900s, the latter is estimated to have infected 500 million people worldwide (27% of the global population at that time).

Adhering to the advice of local health authorities, isolating patients and social distancing remain pillars to minimise the spread of any virus. However, when facing up to the ultimate impact of COVID-19 and the prospect of future pandemics, it is crucial that industries, and in particular companies operating in the insurance arena, do not work in isolation. We must all work in tandem with relevant authorities to navigate our individual and collective journeys.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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COLUMN/HR

Pursuit of productivity during uncertain scenarios Omer Saleem, Director and Deputy CEO of Proven SA discusses how to keep your team focused and productive during uncertain times Big businesses grow and adapt as the market environment changes and do so even more rapidly now with the accelerating technology options. With this growth and infusion of technology driven changes comes a new requirement for corporate positions to evolve with the corporation itself. It has become ever more critical for the overall success of entities that every position is filled by an agile employee whose workload is role-based and goal-oriented, the aim being 360 degree success. Today’s COVID-19 scenario is a prime example of how well-functioning corporations can face shocks to business as usual that can fundamentally change service delivery with downstream effects touching almost every internal part of the organization as well as the impact to the business from the overall market itself.

Productivity is synonymous with getting things done efficiently. Productivity is defined differently for each organization and subsequently measured uniquely as well. Some organizations will measure productivity through client satisfaction while others may use operational metrics. Internally, each department might have further functionally driven metrics such as employee satisfaction in the HR department or whether the marketing department is targeting the right audience at the right time. Whatever scale your business uses, a structural SMARTSMB / April 2020

understanding of the business and a clear yet fluid job designations must be in place.

In most cases in today’s market, productivity is measured at a departmental level with department specific criteria but a holistic business level productivity review is often missing which often leads to underperformance and diminished value creation from existing resources. It is critical to align to departmental metrics of productivity with organizational goals and subsequent strategy. As the market takes on new situations like an unexpected and fast-spreading pandemic, new challenges arise that put all individuals, businesses, the market and the entire world to the test. Productivity must become a more common topic in the workplace in order to make sure every employee is working at the highest level that helps the business create maximum value.

Internal operations must not revolve around one department’s work in favor of the other. When managers start to feel like their departments are not creating value, they will feel the same way about their jobs and this demotivation will seep into their subordinates. As a business, your highest mission is optimum value creation.

This can only be achieved if each role in the organization has clear visibility of high level company goals and align

their personalized goals for their respective roles. It is imperative in the current fast moving environment to have regular communication along with agile, clear goals aligning managers with the company goals which they can then optimize for their reportees to create maximum value.

The same goes for individuals; how will you approach business as usual?

How will your performance lead the business to achieving its goals? Tasks will automatically take long-term and short-term forms, and business tools will document these and set timelines and deadlines for them. As a result, the following elements will play a key part in boosting productivity:

Management Managers connect the base of the company pyramid to its vertex; they communicate the large-scale goals and transform them into operational goals. Managers need to have consistent communication with their employees and help define the priority, duration and outcomes of the operational goals. The communication needs to be in both directions. Managers should not only provide regular feedback to their employees but at the same time raise their concerns upwards to higher management and serve as their voice.

Productivity is maximized if managers

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fulfil this role and bridge the gap between higher strategy and operational delivery. The managers should be the key resources during uncertainty to keep the organization anchored and play the immense role of mediators and motivators.

Human Resources It is now more important than ever to focus on the retention and development of your employee base. As businesses become more specialized and clients more demanding active knowledge management and employee retention become a key driver of success and productivity. Identifying high performing employees and putting them in leadership roles will create a culture of growth. Productivity gains can be made by putting a focus on matching employee needs and aligning these with company goals. During uncertain times it is imperative to provide clear guidance for employees so that they may do more than their role job descriptions and take on additional responsibilities according to their skills sets to mitigate costs and increase value creation.

Communication Healthy, open communication channeled properly between stakeholders remains one of the foundations of a successful business. The medium of communication within organizations and between employees if evolving very quickly. If an open culture of communication is established, then organizations can successfully navigate almost any challenge which the market throws at them. During volatile times open lines of communication will be the pillar on which companies will navigate through the turbulence.

The importance of quickly establishing clear communication channels for operations along with other business elements is key. It is critical to keep employees and clients connected in uncertain times. There is a direct relationship between productivity and

Omer Saleem

Director & Deputy CEO, Proven SA

communication. Effective communication helps inspire everyone to work efficiently and productively.

dividends in maintaining business operations during any volatile periods thereby increasing productivity.

Technical Support

It takes a concentrated and focused approach to build a business which is agile and can navigate through times of uncertainty. The above-mentioned elements are just some of the areas of enablement. Each business is unique and has its own requirements for success. Navigating unforeseen scenarios requires a business to have synergy between its various elements. It needs to have leadership which is proactive in addressing the needs of the business, its employees as well as clients. Maintaining productivity through turbulent periods many times differs from productivity through business as usual environments. A company and its leadership needs to stay agile during uncertainty and redefine what it means to be productive depending on the scenario at hand.

Technology is fast become the backbone of most modern businesses.

Service delivery in many instances is solely dependent on the fluid operation of a company’s IT infrastructure.

It is imperative that organizations not only pay attention to pairing the right resources with the business needs but also project any fluctuations accurately in order to facilitate business continuity during volatile periods. Having IT support which fully understands the business and provides ongoing support and solutions to enable business can be an indispensable asset.

A seasoned technical support team might seem to be an expensive overhead on a general basis but will yield

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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COLUMN/BUSINESS

A STRATEGY FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY – VIRTUAL WORKSPACE STATION Sunil Paul, Co-founder of Finesse, the global provider of digital transformation solutions, outlines a ‘Strategy for Business Continuity’ during pandemics & unprecedented threats On 12 March 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially confirmed the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak as a pandemic. The WHO defines an epidemic as ‘the worldwide spread of a new disease’ for which “most people do not have immunity.”

From its epicentre in Wuhan, China in December last year, Covid-19 has spread to 191 countries as of 23 March, infecting 332,966 people and killing 14,511, according to data reported to WHO. As its director-general had noted, “Every day, Covid-19 seems to reach a new and tragic milestone.”

J P Morgan Global Economics Research said that “it expects the global economy to experience an unSMARTSMB / April 2020

precedented contraction during the first half of the year as containment measures are driving deep collapses in monthly economic activity.”

There is no doubt that global businesses are getting hit on all fronts as countries shut down, supply chains splinter, travel restrictions and quarantines hit people and cargo movements, and employees are exposed to the risk of infections. More than half of companies (51%) around the world have no business continuity plan or protocols in place to combat the coronavirus outbreak, according to a recent study by global consultancy firm Mercer.

With a higher-than-average number of illness and deaths in age groups

different than what is seen in typical flu outbreaks, with no vaccine or proven antiviral medication, and a possibility of multiple outbreaks, Covid-19 could be the feared ‘single biggest threat’ to business continuity.

Traditionally, business continuity plans have focused on threats like natural disasters, technical disasters and malicious acts that affect a specific geographic area, facility, or system. They also assume that once the event has occurred, it is over and, while the effects may linger, recovery can begin. However, a pandemic is fundamentally different from traditional business continuity threats in that it is worldwide in scope, of indefinite duration and can be a moving

COLUMN/BUSINESS

target in that companies may need to adjust as things change; and most importantly, it is not infrastructure but mainly people that will become unavailable due to absenteeism.

In the case of Covid-19, as the virus spreads rapidly across countries and continents in a matter of weeks, people are finding they are unable to report to work due to government-mandated public health measures, city lockdowns, travel restrictions, social distancing and quarantine norms if they aren’t infected.

pany’s internal network/intranet; ensure stable and reliable internet access and VPN; access to corporate emails and sharing larger files.

In other words, organisations need to ensure that employees have basic technology as well as access to the right collaboration and communication tools to be effective in a virtual environment.

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A virtual space workstation can replicate the physical office environment through the integration of various software and systems would enable the organisation to conduct their daily work activities like chats, project management, web and video conferencing, collaboration and prototyping, scheduling and workflow automation in a hassle-free environment.

While actual estimates vary, the cycle from disruption to recovery from a pandemic is expected to last anywhere between six months at the minimum to 12 or even up to 18 months it strikes in waves. Gartner analysis has noted that companies should factor staff absenteeism exceeding 40 percent for extended and sequential periods.

The focus of BCP, therefore, should be to ensure that companies can maintain core business activities for several weeks or months with limited staff. Covid-19 pandemic has expanded the boundaries of how far organisations thought flexible workplace policies could stretch. Multi-location enterprises would inevitably be more affected than those with a single location. BCP strategies should focus less on infrastructure protection and more on the protection of employees and their ability to conduct business, which includes moving to virtual workspaces and practices.

The Covid-19 outbreak has seen many companies shut down their principal and satellite offices, asking their employees to start working from home for the foreseeable future. A virtual workspace concept can make the transition to work-from-home a smooth and hassle-free affair.

At its core, a virtual workspace includes many of the same elements as a physical one: places to collaborate, share ideas and get work done. For example, they would need to provide secure remote access to the com-

Sunil Paul

Co-Founder, Finesse

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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COLUMN/CYBERSECURITY

5 THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY TO MAKE ZOOMING SAFER Paul Ducklin, principal research scientist, Sophos discusses how to make your experience with Zoom safer

SMARTSMB / April 2020

Work still means meetings, and meetings still mean people.

But with the coronavirus pandemic having caused many countries to define a “group” as a maximum of two people, and prohibiting people from meeting up face-to-face anyway, even with friends and family, then meeting with people means an online meeting.

For very many of us, that means Zoom, not least because many of us were using Zoom already, and happily, and… …or so we thought, safely.

But Zoom has had a bunch of security scares recently, as huge numbers of new users flock to it, and as crooks and miscreants try to take advantage of that.

Fortunately, a lot of the problems and risks people are having can be reduced enormously just by getting the basics right.

Unfortunately, a lot of the habits that existing Zoom users have fallen into need to change.

Insecure shortcuts – ways of using Zoom that the old-timers have inadvertently been teaching to the Zoom newcomers – didn’t seem to matter that much before, but they do now.

So here are our top 5 “things to get right first” – they shouldn’t take you long, and they are easy to do.

1. Patch early, patch often Zoom’s own CEO just wrote a blog post announcing a “feature freeze” in

COLUMN /CYBERSECURITY

the product so that the company can focus on security issues instead. It’s much easier to do that if you aren’t adding new code at the same time.

Why not get into the habit of checking you’re up-to-date every day, before your first meeting? Even if Zoom itself told you about an update the very last time you used it, get in the habit of checking by hand anyway, just to be sure. It doesn’t take long.

By the way, we recommend you do this with all your software – even if you have been using your operating system’s or an app’s autoupdating for years and it’s always been on time, a manual cross-check is quick and easy.

2. Use the Waiting Room option Set up meetings so that the participants can’t join in until you open it up.

And if you suddenly find yourself “on hold until the organiser starts the meeting” when in the past you would have spent the time chatting to your colleagues and getting the smalltalk over with, don’t complain – those pre-meeting meetings are great for socialising but they do make it harder to control the meeting.

Zoom has a dedicated article on the Waiting Room feature on its website.

3. Take control over screen sharing Until recently, most Zoom meetings (or at least the ones we attended in the not-too-distant era before coronavirus) took a liberal approach to screen sharing.

But the term ZoomBombing entered our vocabulary very forcefully about two weeks ago, when a public “Happy Hour” meeting that was supposed to buoy everyone’s morale turned into an HR nightmare when one of the participants, who had entered under a false name, started sharing pornographic filth. (Unhappily for the organiser of the meeting, he’d chosen that day to

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invite his parents along as guests of honour.)

Actually, it’s not just screen sharing that can cause trouble. There are numerous controls you can apply to participants in meetings, including blocking file sharing and private chat, kicking out disruptive users, and stopping troublemakers coming back.

Zoom has a dedicated article on Managing participants in a meeting on its website

4. Use random meeting IDs and set meeting passwords We know lots of Zoom users who memorised their own meeting ID long ago and had fallen into the habit of using it for every meeting they held – even back-to-back meetings with different groups – because they knew they’d never need to look it up.

But that convenience is handy for crooks, too, because they already have a list of known IDs that they can try automatically in the hope of wandering in where they aren’t supposed to be.

We recommend using a randomly generated meeting ID, and setting a password on any meeting that is not explicitly open to all. You can send the web link by one means, e.g. in an email or invitation request, and the password by another means, e.g. in an instant message just before the meeting starts. (You can also lock meetings once they start to avoid gaining unwanted visitors after you’ve started concentrating on the meeting itself.)

Zoom has a dedicated article on Meeting and webinar passwords.

5. Make some rules of etiquette and stick to them.

Etiquette may sound like a strange bedfellow for cybersecurity, and perhaps it is.

Paul Ducklin

Principal Research Scientist, Sophos

But respect for privacy, a sense of trust, and a feeling of social and business comfort are also important parts of a working life that’s now dominated by online meetings.

If you’re expected or you need to use video, pay attention to your appearance and the lighting. (In very blunt terms: try to avoid being a pain to watch.) Remember to use the mute button when you can.

And most importantly – especially if there are company outsiders in the meeting – be very clear up front if you will be recording the meeting, even if you are in a jurisdiction that does not require you to declare it. And make it clear if they are any restrictions, albeit informal ones, about what the participants are allowed to do with the information they learn in the meeting.

Etiquette isn’t about keeping the bad guys out. But respectful rules of engagement for remote meetings help to make it easy for everyone in the meeting to keep the good stuff in.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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TECH WATCH

GENETEC AUTOVU SHARPZ3 • The AutoVu SharpZ3 system will not only be able to improve the accuracy of license plate reads in difficult environments (such as bad weather, heavy traffic, and fast speeds), but will also be able to record additional vehicle characteristics such as, vehicle type, color, and more, in real-time, and without requiring large amounts of bandwidth.

Genetec , a leading technology provider of unified security, public safety, operations, and business intelligence solutions announced the immediate availability of its next-generation mobile license plate recognition system.

The new AutoVu SharpZ3 goes beyond traditional license plate identification and brings new levels of insight in vehicle analytics, situational awareness, and accuracy.

evolution of the mix of vehicle types over time.

For law enforcement officers who use mobile ALPR to aid investigations, the SharpZ3 allows patrols to flag vehicles based on vehicle type and color where no license plate was identified by a witness.

Ideally suited to meet the needs of parking managers who use mobile ALPR as part of their enforcement activities, the new SharpZ3 can help them track the types of vehicle (car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle) in parking lots or around the city, and analyze the

• The AutoVu SharpZ3 is among the first specialized in-vehicle ALPR systems in the world to use Intel’s latest machine learning and computer vision technology to unlock new insights through innovative analytics.

Highlights:

IOT SENSOR BUNDLES FOR INTERACT OFFICE Employee discomfort, ill health and reduced performance can be linked to a poor-quality office environment. Good quality lighting can already help to increase employee productivity up to 23%. Apart from lighting, there are other environmental elements that impact employee health and wellbeing. For example, higher indoor temperatures and relative humidity can correlate with SMARTSMB / April 2020

sneezing, skin redness, itchy eyes, headaches and sore eyes. Poor thermal comfort control leads to a 6% drop in staff performance when offices are too hot, and 4% when too cold. In addition, employee performance can decrease by as much as 66% when there is distracting noise, and it can take an average of 25 minutes to return to a task after an interruption.

• Designed with a third optical sensor, the AutoVu SharpZ3 can accurately capture multiple plate designs in complex urban environments. These include flat, embossed, reflective and non-reflective license plates. The extra sensor will also allow more precise positioning of vehicle data on maps to provide more precise occupancy data than before.

• With its modular design, the SharpZ3 gives users the flexibility to add new functionalities over time. This reduces the complication and cost of hardware replacement.

TECH WATCH

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SEAGATE’S IRONWOLF 510 Seagate Technology announced the latest in high-performance solutions for multi-user NAS environments, adding to their award-winning IronWolf SSD product line. Seagate’s IronWolf 510 is an M.2 NVMe SSD with caching speeds of up to 3GBps for NVMe-compatible systems and is ideal for creative pros and business NAS needing 24×7 multi-user storage that is cache enabled.

Seagate is arguably the first to provide a purpose-built M.2 NVMe for NAS that goes beyond SATA performance metrics and also provides 3x the endurance when compared to the competition. This meets the required endurance spec of one DWPD which Seagate’s NAS partners expect for their customers. Because of such high endurance, customers get a tough SSD for small business and creative professional NAS environments.

Highlights :

(DWPD), allowing multi-user NAS environments to do more with their data with lasting performance.

• The IronWolf 510 SSD is reliable with 1.8 million hours mean time between failures (MTBF) in a PCIe form factor, two years of Rescue Data Recovery Services, and a five-year limited warranty.

• The IronWolf 510 SSD meets leading top NAS manufacturer requirements of one drive write per day

• IronWolf Health Management helps analyze drive health and will soon be available on compatible NAS systems.

Keeping employees comfortable and healthy in an office is critical. Signify a leader in lighting, is launching new Philips IoT sensor bundles that collect and deliver data via the Interact Office connected lighting system and Environmental monitoring API’s. The new sensors that are being launched enable businesses to monitor their office environment and optimize conditions for employee health and wellbeing.

provide indoor positioning and navigation capabilities. Bundling and delivering these sensing capabilities into one unit eliminates the need for multiple sensors and is also much more cost effective for businesses. The ability to differentiate the office working experience can help to create a healthy place to work, and help organizations reduce absenteeism.

The new sensor bundles can monitor occupancy, the number of people, temperature (at room and at desk level), noise levels, daylight levels, relative humidity and are Bluetooth enabled, to

Highlights: • These new sensors are smaller than a match box and are easily upgraded on premise with a simple click and swap via an up-

• The IronWolf 510 SSD PCIe Gen3 x4, NVMe 1.3 is available in 240GB, 480GB, 960GB, and 1.92TB capacities and is compatible with leading NAS vendors to provide server storage for small and medium-sized businesses and creative professionals that use NAS. • Combine IronWolf Hard Drives with IronWolf SSD’s and benefit from ultra-high capacity, ultra-high endurance, and highspeed caching.

gradable sensor slot, a unique feature across a range of Philips professional office luminaires.

• There’s no need to take the luminaires out of the ceiling as the sensors can be fitted from the front of the luminaire.

• This future-ready solution means that luminaires can now be upgraded with different sensors at any time.

This gives organizations the flexibility to benefit from increased functionality coming along in the future or for example, when a new tenant wants increased functionality.

April 2020 / SMARTSMB

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MARKET MONITOR

ONLY 12% OF ORGANIZATIONS HIGHLY PREPARED FOR CORONAVIRUS Just 12% of more than 1,500 respondents believe their businesses are highly prepared for the impact of coronavirus, while 26% believe that the virus will have little or no impact on their business, according to a recent survey

by Gartner, Inc. In a Gartner business continuity webinar on March 6, Gartner experts asked participants how prepared they are for impact of COVID-19.

Most respondents (56%) rate themselves somewhat prepared, and 11% said they were either relatively or very unprepared. Just 2% of respondents believe their business can continue as normal, highlighting the huge range of businesses that could be affected by the outbreak. Twenty-four percent of respondents expect little disruption, while the majority expect business to continue at a reduced pace (57%), to be severely restricted (16%) or to be discontinued altogether (1%).

The challenge lies partly in the ambiguity inherent to managing an emerging risk such as coronavirus. Organizations often have policies in place to deal with most risks, but they don’t activate them until it’s too late because no one is owning the risk or taking it seriously until it is fully manifested. The threshold for a risk to generate executive action is often too high to enable an effective response.

Having an enterprise risk management (ERM) function in place means that an organization is more likely to see risks coming and then mitigate the impact of those emerging risks more swiftly and effectively. Gartner’s view is that a focus on impacts rather than specific scenarios is best practice for ERM. Pandemic provides a perfect example of how this approach works SMARTSMB / April 2020

– companies that wait until the emerging risk is already impacting operations and/or many employees will likely find themselves playing catch up and losing ground to companies that were better prepared.

Companies can get better prepared by considering what interim events could occur that would suggest that a pandemic, or similar emerging risk, is about to sharply increase in terms of its impact or likelihood. By using an ERM approach to identify and prepare for those specific events – and setting up mechanisms to monitor for them – the best companies are better positioned to avoid major disruption.

For those dealing with a crisis response to the coronavirus in their organization, they should have planned responses to specific im-

pacts. For example, what will the company do if one employee gets sick? Ask all employees to self-isolate? Are work-from-home procedures sufficiently mature to support that or will work have to stop? Do suppliers or clients need to be notified? Is finance able to support operations in the event of anticipated losses?

Using an impacts-based method makes it very clear when to trigger a response plan and to start mitigating the effect of specific impacts on an organization. Also having response plans that react to specific impacts means it is simpler to communicate the plan to staff, so that all employees can play a part in managing risk.

In fast-moving situations such as this, the more people who are owning risk, the more likely it is that an organizational response will be timely.

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